Instant communication is a real-time communication between two or more people. Instant communication usually refers to instant (text) messaging but now includes other forms of communication, such as voice over IP and video over IP. An example of instant communication software is Yahoo! Messenger. A particular user has a downloadable client version of the software on his/her computer. The particular user establishes a relationship with another user by, e.g., inviting the other user to be a “friend” or “contact” of the particular user or by accepting an invitation from the other user to be a contact of the other user.
Instant communication has become a way of life for a large segment of Internet users, including commercial corporate users. Unfortunately, security has not been a primary concern over the last 10 years when such instant communication technologies have been developed.
One drawback of current instant communication software (such as Skype and AOL Instant Messenger) is that such software uses application-level packet encryption to provide security to instant communications. A result of this approach is that whenever an additional type of instant communication is added to an instant communication suite (e.g., adding voice over IP to text messaging) running on a user's computer, extensive rework of the instant communication suite is required.
Another drawback of current instant communication software is that the security policies are the same for all contacts of a user.
The approaches described in this section are approaches that could be pursued, but not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated, it should not be assumed that any of the approaches described in this section qualify as prior art merely by virtue of their inclusion in this section.